Our Voice: Go big at the corners of Washington and Genesee or don’t bother

By this time next year, the government-subsidized housing in the Bancroft Building and Eddy Place will be gone — a thorn in the side of downtown Saginaw removed.

Then what?

For all the excitement that the downtown intersection of Genesee and Washington will no longer be a government housing project, we’re surprised by the lack of big ideas so far for repopulating those corners.

This moment in Saginaw history can be a catalyst for rebuilding downtown. The 70 or more people who crowded into a meeting room at Great Lakes Crossroad, 234 S. Water, on Nov. 30 know that. They gathered to discuss the potential of the Bancroft and Eddy buildings.

Let’s not lose that energy as the months ahead drag on until the last tenant leaves.

Saginaw needs some big — really big — ideas for its city center, pronto. Without them, we fear the future of downtown could fade.

There’s some chatter that the apartment buildings could cater to an expected influx of medical students when Central Michigan University opens its medical school campuses here in 2015, near St. Mary’s and Covenant hospitals.

That could work. Look how student housing for the University of Michigan-Flint campus has transformed that downtown in the past three or four years. Downtown Flint, many are surprised to see and delighted to say, actually shows signs of life once again.

That could happen in Saginaw, but only with equally big thinking.

Without some grand plans, the Bancroft and Eddy buildings could sink into obscurity and vacancy like so many other downtown edifices have in past decades.

We heard some people at the visioning session in late November say downtown does have some pearls to build from — the magnificently renovated Temple Theatre and the popular Dow Event Center. Those venues certainly do hold some glimmer for Saginaw’s future.

But any real revival for downtown will require offices populated with workers or apartments full of downtowners — preferably both.

People such as Saginaw Township developer and downtown building owner Jim Hill are right when they say that Saginawians are too hard on their downtown.

The place isn’t the centerpiece for drug dealing and prostitution that some may believe. In fact, crime downtown doesn’t come even close to what occurs in some of Saginaw’s residential areas — hasn’t even during all those years that low-income people were housed in the Bancroft and Eddy buildings.

The Michigan State Housing Development Authority will take ownership of the buildings in January after their longtime owner Wingate Companies of Massachusetts agreed to hand them over to the state rather than continue to lose money housing government-supported tenants. The authority is waiting to hear from the people of Saginaw what they want done with these properties.

Downtown living for medical students? Artists’ lofts? Business offices? Condos? How about using a floor or three to incubate budding entrepreneurs’ ideas? Maybe all of the above.

There’s a lot to be said for leaving the car parked for days while you live, work, shop and go out to eat — all within walking distance of your front door. It may not be a family thing, but it’s a lifestyle that does appeal to both young adults just starting out and empty-nesters who’d rather not mow the lawn or shovel their walks.

Get some momentum in people moving back to downtown and pretty soon its revival would snowball.

More people, more shops, more offices, more bars and restaurants.

The pending vacancies of the Bancroft and Eddy buildings are a tremendous opportunity, but only if coupled with big ideas.

Without them, they have the potential to become a couple more examples of the old Bearinger Building — magnificent, imagination-inducing structures that nobody will fully embrace.